FRASER, JAMES, bishop of Manchester, born near Cheltenham, became a Fellow of Oriel after graduating with highest honours, and in 1847 was appointed to a college living; he issued in 1862-1864 valuable reports on education in Canada and the United States after visiting these countries; and in 1870 was appointed bishop by Mr. Gladstone; his strong sense and wide sympathy and interest in the labour questions won him universal respect (1818-1885).

FRASER RIVER, the chief river of British Columbia, is formed by the junction near Fort George of two streams, one rising in the Rockies, the other flowing out of the Lakes Stuart and Fraser; it discharges into the Georgian Gulf, 800 m. below Fort George.  Rich deposits of gold are found in the lower basin, and an active industry in salmon-catching and canning is carried on.

FRATICELLI (i. e.  Little Brethren), a religious sect which arose in Italy in the 13th century, and continued to exist until the close of the 15th.  They were an offshoot from the FRANCISCANS (q. v.), who sought in their lives to enforce more rigidly the laws of St. Francis, and declined to accept the pontifical explanations of monastic rules; ultimately they broke away from the authority of the Church, and despite the efforts of various popes to reconcile them, and the bitter persecutions of others, maintained a separate organisation, going the length of appointing their own cardinals and pope, having declared the Church in a state of apostasy.  Their regime of life was of the severest nature; they begged from door to door their daily food, and went clothed in rags.

FRAUNHOFER, JOSEPH VON, German optician, born in Straubing, Bavaria; after serving an apprenticeship as a glass-cutter in Muenich, he rose to be manager of an optical institute there, and eventually attained to the position of professor in the Academy of Sciences; his name is associated with many discoveries in optical science as well as inventions and improvements in the optician’s art; but he is chiefly remembered for his discovery of the dark lines in the solar spectrum, since called after him the Fraunhofer lines (1787-1826).

FREDEGONDA, wife of Chilperic I. of Neustria; a woman of low birth, but of great beauty and insatiable ambition, who scrupled at no crime to attain her end; made away with Galswintha, Chilperic’s second wife, and superseded her on the throne; slew Siegbert, who had been sent to avenge Galswintha’s death, and imprisoned Brunhilda, her sister, of Austrasia, and finally assassinated her husband and governed Neustria in the name of her son, Clotaire II. (543-597).